GOP to propose plan for discretion in budget cuts

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WASHINGTON Congressional Republicans are preparing to counter increasingly dire warnings from President Barack Obama about the effect of automatic budget cuts with a plan to give the administration more flexibility in instituting $85 billion in cuts, a proposal they say could protect the most vital programs while shifting more of the political fallout to the White House.

The plan is vigorously opposed by the administration, which said Monday that it would do little to soften the blow to military and domestic programs. But it is also dividing Democrats, with lawmakers from the states facing the deepest cuts signaling they may be prepared to go along with Republicans if it means avoiding indiscriminate cuts to defense programs and social services.

With just three days left until the across-the-board cuts called sequestration are to begin, administration officials continued to describe the consequences in alarming terms, even as there was little evidence of serious negotiations with lawmakers to reach a deal to avoid them.

Still, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a leading defense hawk, appeared to advance the debate Monday.

“This is the chance to do the big deal,” he said on CNN. “I'm willing to raise revenue. I'm willing to raise $600 billion in new revenue if my Democratic friends would be willing to reform entitlements and we can fix sequestration together.”

Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, said the automatic cuts would leave the country less well guarded and less able to meet terrorist threats, and would inconvenience millions of travelers. Ken Salazar, the secretary of the interior, warned that campgrounds would close, firefighting efforts would be scaled back and fewer seasonal workers would be hired.

“There's always a threat,” Napolitano said. “We are going to do everything we can to minimize that risk. But the sequester makes that very, very tough.”

Seeking to shift responsibility for the cuts to Obama and to defang attacks by the White House, Republicans were expected to unveil legislation today that they said would mitigate some of the biggest concerns by letting agencies and departments cull programs that were long ago proved to be ineffective, while making sure critical federal functions like air traffic control and meat inspection are spared.

But White House budget officials are leery. If Congress grants the White House the authority to protect air traffic controllers, Border Patrol agents and national parks, the administration's high-pressure campaign that has been mounting for weeks could deflate. Moreover, the White House would take on the responsibility of deciding which programs to protect and which to expose – and the political consequences that go with that.

Daniel I. Werfel, the controller of the White House budget office, said that if the administration had to cut $2 billion from the Education Department's budget, choosing between children covered by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or Title I for poor districts is not really freedom.

“Poor children or children with disabilities, it's $2 billion in a seven-month period of time,” Werfel said. “The notion that there's these enormous pockets of low-priority activities that we can move this money from – I don't see it.”

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, dismissed the Republican plan, saying that no amount of flexibility could mitigate the damage of the automatic cuts. He said such changes could help only “on the margins.”

White House officials fear the legislation would give lawmakers the false sense that they had voted to take the sting out of cuts that will hurt no matter what flexibility the administration has.

“The notion that you're walking away from this without some of the abrupt, significant effects that would occur from the sequester, in our estimation, it's not true,” Werfel said.

The proposal is also opposed by some Republicans who fear it would give away too much of Congress' authority to say where and how money gets spent. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., condemned it as an unacceptable ceding of congressional authority.

“I say to my Republican friends, if you want to just give the president flexibility as to how to enact these cuts in defense spending, then why don't we go home and just give him the money?” McCain said Sunday on CNN. “I am totally opposed to that.”

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., pointed out the irony of Republicans wanting to give Obama more discretion in how he manages the nation's finances.

“These guys bash the president nonstop,” he said in an interview. “Then they are going to take the power of the purse and say, ‘We are so unable to do our job we are going to give you complete flexibility to do it'? There's an irony there.”

The showdown is likely to come Wednesday, when Senate Democrats are to put to a vote legislation that would cancel this year's automatic, across-the-board cuts and replace them with a $110 billion package of tax increases on incomes more than $1 million, the elimination of farm subsidies and defense cuts delayed until 2014.

The Republican legislative proposal expected today may simply codify the latitude Republicans say the administration already has to shift cuts within an agency or department without exposing more programs to the knife.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., has joined the flexibility effort.

“I continue to work with my colleagues in urging the White House and congressional leaders to at least provide enough flexibility for agencies to make more rational budget decisions,” Warner said in a statement.

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